


Sunflower

by Lunatasha



Category: Bleach
Genre: Death from Old Age, F/M, Mentions of Cancer, very brief mentions of cancer though its not the cause of anyone's death in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:15:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25033057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunatasha/pseuds/Lunatasha
Summary: Orihime had plucked one of the petals from the head, wanting to save something from the flower, and ended up starting the very scrapbook in her hands, documenting their relationship with sunflowers. From the first photo of them with sunflowers, to their wedding, to this, their first wedding anniversary.Written for day 3 of IshiHime Week 2020.
Relationships: Inoue Orihime/Ishida Uryuu
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6
Collections: IshiHime Week 2020





	Sunflower

The first photo in the scrapbook was so old now, 71 years to be precise, that Orihime was surprised that it hadn't degraded all that much, especially as it was taken with a rather cheap polaroid camera. She supposed having it put in the scrapbook rather than out in the house helped. She smiled as she remembered the events leading to the photo. It was when Uryu had given her her very first bouquet. Sunflowers prettily arranged with some white daisies and baby's breath. She had asked him why sunflowers in particular and he had gotten a little embarrassed, flustered in the way only a teenage boy can be, but explained nonetheless. Saying that she reminded him of the sun, that she always brightened up his day, so sunflowers reminded him of her and felt perfect for her. She remembers trying to not tear up at Uryu's words, overwhelmed by the meaning of his flower choice.

  
She wanted to take a photo, to commemorate her first ever bouquet, the first bouquet from Uryu, and the first moment she felt like she was completely irreversibly in love with him (not that she told him that until later on). Orihime had her polaroid camera with her at the time, a birthday gift from Tatsuki, so she squished up to Uryu, her back leaning against his chest, one hand holding the sunflower bouquet up, the other holding the camera and took the photo. If she looked closely Orihime could tell her eyes had been a little shiny with unshed tears. Orihime smiled. At the time she had no idea how important that moment had ended up being.

  
Her reaction had spurred Uryu to give her sunflowers on meaningful occasions, and they quickly became her favourite flower as a result. So it was only natural to include sunflowers in their wedding, featuring them in the centrepieces, and in Orihime's bridal bouquet as well. Together they had picked some of the photos from the wedding to put into this scrapbook, Orihime turning the page to see them. Uryu in a smart navy suit with a yellow tie to match the wedding colours, her in a classic white wedding dress, huge bright smiles on both of their faces. At one point during the reception Orihime had taken a sunflower out of one of the centrepieces and weaved it into her hair on the right side of her head, a moment she was glad the wedding photographer had managed to capture. It was one of her favourite photos from the wedding. Both of them sitting at their table at the front of the hall, Orihime gesturing to the sunflower in her hair showing her now husband what she'd done with a big goofy happy smile, Uryu smiling brightly right back at her with nothing but love in his eyes.

  
She hadn't had the heart to throw away her bridal bouquet, instead putting it in a vase in the kitchen, even though she knew by the time they came back from their honeymoon the flowers would have long died. Sure enough, when they arrived home after two weeks the flowers had all wilted, turning brown. However Orihime noticed that the sunflowers had dropped seeds. Most of them had fallen into the stagnant water in the vase, so she had no idea if they were still viable but she tried planting them anyway. A few did actually germinate and flower, but they didn't last very long, there was a cold snap that year which killed them quicker than they would've died otherwise. She remembered being a little down about it, the last vestiges of their wedding gone now. But it had given Uryu the idea of giving Orihime sunflower seeds (among other things) for the first wedding anniversary, which ended up propelling their little sunflower habit into a full blown tradition.

  
They had both gone out in the garden later that day, carefully planting the seeds in their little plotting patch. Only one of them actually germinated, but it grew wonderfully, reaching an amazing four feet before starting to wither. Orihime had plucked one of the petals from the head, wanting to save something from the flower, and ended up starting the very scrapbook in her hands, documenting their relationship with sunflowers. From the first photo of them with sunflowers, to their wedding, to this, their first wedding anniversary. The preserved petal had been put into a small protective plastic sleeve (Uryu's idea) and stuck into the scrapbook, along with photos from their first year of marriage. After finding out that only specific sunflowers naturally come back each year, Uryu bought Orihime sunflower seeds every year for their wedding anniversary, and every year they would go out and plant them that day.

  
Orihime flipped through the scrapbook, each double page another year of their marriage. It wasn't until their fifth year of marriage that the photo of their yearly sunflower planting actually featured a sunflower in it. Uryu had theorised that the seeds from a previous year's sunflowers must've fallen into the soil and managed to grow, citing the good weather that they had that year. Orihime smiled at the planting photo from that year. They were standing in the plotting patch, Uryu holding their first born, a two year old boy at that point, and Orihime heavily pregnant with their second. The double page in the scrapbook also featured the traditional preserved sunflower petal from the flowers they had grown that year, along with a photo from their son's second birthday, a sonogram of their little upcoming arrival, and a photo of a family picnic they had.

  
After that year the scrapbook had become a little spotty, not quite managing to document every year. Between two children, Uryu's full time job, Orihime going back to work part time once their youngest had reached nursery age (couldn't not, they had a mortgage to pay off after all) it was a struggle to make sure they filled out the scrapbook every year. And frankly with their busy lives they didn't need yet another thing to stress about. They had both wanted to keep the scrapbook going though, so they made a decision to update it every 5 years instead. Orihime turned the page to the tenth year of their marriage, when the scrapbook had gone back to being a bit more organised, taking up two sets of double pages now that it was covering multiple years. The first photo was the traditional sunflower planting photo, their son, seven years old in the photo, was standing politely with his hands clasped behind his back with a nice smile. Their daughter, four, was hugging a sunflower with a silly little grin on her face, with her and Uryu smiling proudly behind their children. Orihime smiled with tears in her eyes at the other photos. They may not have been able to update the scrapbook as much as they had originally planned, with all of their adult commitments, but they did have the time of their lives. Photos from their ten year wedding anniversary party, photos from their family outing to a theme park, a photo from their daughter starting school, a photo of their son learning piano. The scrapbook was filled with lovely memories from all those years ago.

  
Orihime turned the pages again, to their fifteenth year of marriage. As always the first page started with a preserved sunflower petal and a photo from their annual planting, this one showing a few more sunflowers in the patch than last time. All of the years of planting sunflowers meant the patch was slowly filling with sunflower seeds from previous years, each year giving them more sunflowers than the last. Other photos adorned the pages as well of course. A photo of their son starting middle school, looking more and more like Uryu as he got older, a photo of their then nine year old daughter 'helping' Orihime sewing a dress for her. A photo of her and Uryu from a date night, dressed to the nines because they had managed to score a reservation in a fancy restaurant. They were 38 and 39 in that photo, their age (and the non-stop busyness of having two children) starting to show. Orihime smiles as she remembers being a little frustrated that her skin was starting to wrinkle so early. Uryu was having none of it, and he had gently taken her face into his hands and told her it showed how much life she was fitting into her years on the earth, how hard she worked for their family, always being there for every single event the kids took part in, the lines starting to show at her eyes revealing how much she smiled every single day.

  
Their twentieth year of marriage wasn't all that exciting truth be told, but honestly when you've gone past 40 and you've got two teenage kids, calm is all you really want. In the traditional sunflower planting photo the kids, 17 and 14 then, were both stood next to their parents, smiling politely for the camera, no silly antics to be found by that point. Well from the kids anyway, Orihime still had her moments. Other photos included both of the kids at the piano, their son trying to teach their daughter after she suddenly started showing interest. She never really picked it up, and switched to trying to learn how to play the guitar instead after a while, which was another photo featured in the scrapbook. There was a photo of all of them celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary with an expensive dinner, courtesy of Ryuken, his grandchildren old enough to take to fancy places now without worrying.

  
The twenty fifth year was an interesting set of photos, their family starting to grow further. By that point their little planting patch had fifteen sunflowers in it easily, the family having to stand in front of the patch rather than in it to take the photo. They were approaching 50 by then, Uryu's hair pretty much grey. They were standing in the middle, their daughter standing to their left and their son, along with his other half, recently engaged, to their right. All of the photos from that year were so happy, their children growing out of their teenage anxieties, becoming confident adults, starting to fly the nest. Their son had already graduated university at that point, and had moved out to live with his soon to be wife, whereas their daughter had moved out the year before to live in university dorms. Orihime had missed them dearly, the house becoming much quieter, but she was beyond happy for them, and proud too. Proud that they were so strong and independent, able to take on any challenge facing them, only occasionally coming to them for help now. (In particular she distinctly remembers when their daughter came home from uni crying her eyes out about how her heart had been broken. Uryu had joked in private that it doesn't matter how tough the kids were, sometimes they just needed mom and dad, Orihime had agreed, thankful that the kids had them there to support them).

  
The thirtieth year was a particularly special set of pages in the scrapbook, featuring their first grandchild, their son's first child, only a year old in the sunflower photo, looking confused at the camera. She remembers that the baby boy kept getting distracted by the sunflowers behind them, much more interested in the bright colours than the camera in front, they had to keep encouraging him to look the right way to get a nice photo. They had put in lots of photos of him, a photo of his first day of life, bundled up in the hospital, a photo of him in Uryu's arms, a photo of him in Orihime's lap. Orihime's favourite was the one where he was lying on his stomach, a big gummy smile directed at Uryu who was lying down next to him, playing with him. Their own kids weren't in the scrapbook as much now, with them being out of the house, but they had both made sure to send a couple of photos to them. Their son had sent his own family photos, them being all he talked about now. Orihime completely understood, having been there herself, and happily listened to all the anecdotes he told her, how his wife had gotten a promotion, how his baby was crawling now and so on, he called her every two weeks with updates. Their daughter didn't call as much, too busy out there living life. She wasn't interested in settling down yet, focused on her own development, and had decided to do a PhD in Germany, wanting to switch things up, wanting more adventure. She hadn't been able to come home for their wedding anniversary that year which was a shame, but Orihime and Uryu got all sorts of photos from her, selfies of her exploring new places, trying new foods, all with a happy smile, which they had made sure to include in the scrapbook as well.

  
The thirty fifth year of marriage had brought two more grandchildren, both from their son, a happy family of five now. She remembered laughing when he said that was enough now, that he didn't think they could handle a fourth. She was inclined to agree, their second child, age 4, was a right troublemaker. Not in an awful way, just more the type to try and push things to see where boundaries lie, more mischievous than mean. In the sunflower photo she was standing on her tiptoes so she could make bunny ears behind her older brother, cheeky grin on her face. Her third grandchild was only six months old at the time of the photo, sleeping against his mother's chest. Once again her daughter wasn't able to be in the photo, but still made sure to send Orihime and Uryu photos they could put in the scrapbook, which were stuck in alongside photos of their grandchildren.

  
By the fortieth year, getting a decent photo of the whole family was an ordeal. Their daughter had come back home, had finished her PhD, with a wife of her own, a lovely woman she had more or less eloped with. Orihime was hurt originally, that their daughter hadn't invited them to their wedding, but understood when she explained that her other half didn't have a relationship with her parents any more, and she didn't want a wedding with her entire family on her side while her partner had no one backing her up, no one to give her away. After hearing that both Orihime and Uryu had made sure to make their new daughter-in-law feel included in the family as possible, she had been overwhelmed at first, but now she was the one who always wanted to make sure everyone could come to family celebrations. They had only been married a year but they had already adopted an adorable set of siblings together, a three year old girl with her few months old brother. This meaning she and Uryu had five grandchildren now, along with their own two kids, and their partners, which meant getting a photo of all of them looking at the camera was a nightmare. If she remembers rightly it took a solid 15 minutes of trying to get the photo that was put into the scrapbook. Worth it though she thinks, glad she had something to help her remember the previous years.

  
Both the forty fifth and fiftieth years were calm affairs, at least for Orihime and Uryu, now sitting in chairs in the photo as they were starting to struggle with age, their children becoming in charge of getting the family sunflower photo rather than them. Their five grandchildren had sit cross-legged in front of them in the forty fifth photo, the two older ones, then 16 and 14, on the outer sides so they wouldn't block her and Uryu. A near full patch of tall sunflowers working as a beautiful backdrop. It was a composed photo, all of the grandchildren old enough to understand smiling for a camera, with the youngest being 5 now. The fiftieth was much the same, except the two older grandchildren weren't in the photo any more, both had gone to university, unable to come due to being busy with their courses. Orihime and Uryu had so many family photos from their children to choose from for the scrapbook now that Orihime had ended up starting second and third scrapbooks, books filled with photos of her son and his family, and her daughter and her family respectively. She had joked with Uryu that it was just as well they were retired now, they finally had the time to do fill the scrapbooks nicely and neatly.

  
The fifty fifth photo had been more a sombre one, no one's smile quite reaching their eyes, contrasting with the bright background of yellow flowers. Ryuken had died a couple of years beforehand, at the age of 97. Frankly both Orihime and Uryu were surprised that he managed to reach that old with how he used to smoke, but they were thankful all the same. He hadn't been very present when their children were growing up, still busy as ever at work (and perhaps scared to connect emotionally, Orihime thought, there was a nervousness about him when he was around them, originally he seemed to think the best way to do right by them was to distance himself.) But as he got older, and perhaps lonelier, he slowly involved himself more, and by the time of his death they had all become attached to him and cared about him, and worried when they saw his health declining. It had been the first funeral Orihime and Uryu had to organise themselves, and it had been their children's and grandchildren's first experience with death. Uryu in particular struggled, he certainly hadn't had a good relationship with him for the first 25 years of his life, but they had slowly but surely mended their divide, and now his father was gone. Not to mention that their children had needed support as well, so it taxing in multiple ways.

  
Then Orihime had a health scare. The early signs of cancer. Early enough that it ended up being treated within a year, something the doctors weren't too worried about, but that wasn't really the point. She (and Uryu) were 79 now. They both knew that this was only going to be the first of many. As did their children. It was the grandchildren that really struggled with it, they were all old enough to understand the biology of it all, the youngest 15 now, but not experienced enough to know how to deal with it. The combination of their great grandfather dying with their grandmother being diagnosed with cancer the year after had been a lot to deal with all at once. Everyone was in this family photo, their children, their children's wives, and all of their grandchildren. She remembered that the youngest of their son's children had called off sick from work for a couple of days just so they could come, saying that this sort of thing was more important in the long run. There hadn't been as many family photos to put in the scrapbook that year, the pages the barest they'd ever been.

  
Thankfully the sixtieth year was a much happier one. They hadn't ended up planting any sunflowers that year, the patch was already so full of them that there was nowhere to plant them. Orihime still made sure to pluck a petal from each flower though, the usual plastic sleeve in the scrapbook almost looking like a bag of confetti now. They took the photo in front of the patch as they always did now, the photo much the same as last year, their children, their children's wives and all of their grandchildren, except for one addition. A four year old girl, the first baby in the family for a while, their first great grandchild. The sunflower scrapbook was filled up again that year, Orihime and Uryu both happy to have a child in the family again.

  
Orihime turned to the last pages of the scrapbook, their sixty fifth year of marriage. There was barely any blank space in the scrapbook, these pages filled to the brim with photos. They didn't just have one more great grandchild since the last set of pages, not just two, but six new little ones, seven great grandchildren in total. So far anyway, with five grandchildren, all in their 20s and 30s, Orihime imagined there will probably be a few more yet. Orihime felt tears well up when she looked at the family photo. It was an absolute mess, but a beautiful one. It had been really difficult to get everyone in the frame, everyone squished up together. It was clear from the photo that all the adults were trying their best to get the children in check, trying to get a nice photo, but with seven young kids that was pretty much impossible. One was clearly unhappy being held, it was obvious she had been kicking her legs to try and convey that she wanted to get down. Another one, a mischievous child, was pulling a silly face, with his brother next to him laughing because of it. One of the younger ones had been put on Uryu's lap and was absolutely fascinated with the idea of pulling his tie as hard as she could. Two of the children at the front had whispering to each other, more interested in talking with each other than the family photo. Only one of the great grandchildren was actually smiling properly at the camera.

  
Orihime remembered her daughter being frustrated, unable to get a 'proper' nice photo no matter how hard she tried. This frustration only got worse when Uryu, almost a year after the photo, soon after reaching 88, had died. No one had expected it, least of all Orihime. As grim as it was she was fully expecting her to be the first one to go, with all of the health problems she kept on having, with all of the medications she has to take now. She had been completely inconsolable. She didn't know what to do, how to do anything, she withdrew into herself. Her children and grandchildren had stepped up, visiting even more regularly, helping her around the house, cooking for her, keeping her company. It had made her realise just how old she had gotten, that the roles had reversed now, her offspring looking after her rather than the other way around. In a weird way it helped her process his death. She _was_ old now, and so had he been. And besides, he died unexpectedly in his sleep, in his own home. He didn't have to feel any dread or anxiety about dying, didn't have to die hooked up to god knows what in a hospital. She hated, absolutely hated that he was gone, but she couldn't have asked for a better death for him. She wasn't sure she'd get the same luxury.

  
His death had meant that the sixty fifth family photo was the last one with all of them in it. Hence her daughter's frustration that it wasn't 'perfect'. Orihime disagreed however, it may not be the kind of photo other people thought of as perfect, but she could see everyone's personality in that photo, could see how lively everyone was, could see how much fun the kids were having. It was a perfect last photo. And it would be the last photo. Orihime knew she wouldn't make it to the seventieth anniversary. She felt weaker everyday. It didn't matter though. She and Uryu had achieved so much and she didn't have a single regret. They had created the most amazing family, filled with love, laughter, and happiness. The patch in the garden full of sunflowers a tangible example of how much love she and Uryu had for each other, a clear showing of how long they had been together.

  
Orihime turned to the very last page of the scrapbook, currently empty. She carefully pulled out the photo one of her grandchildren had sent her in the mail, the last photo she was going to put in her sunflower scrapbook. Her grandchild had decided that he wanted to keep the tradition alive. She delicately stuck the photo in the centre of the page, a perfect ending to the scrapbook. A photo of her newest great grandchild, almost eight months old, sitting up in the garden all on her own, a huge smile on her face revealing her two baby teeth, next to a growing sunflower.


End file.
